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Deutsche Glasfaser Group stays connected through rapid growth

Deutsche Glasfaser Group (Deutsche Glasfaser) is a telecommunications company in Germany. They implement fiber-optic networks and provide internet, television, and phone services. In 2020, Deutsches Glasfaser merged with Inexio, a 400 person company, nearly doubling their workforce overnight.

Anyone who’s experienced rapid company growth knows that internal communications and connection become more important but even more challenging than before. Thankfully, Deutsches Glasfaser had implemented a tool long before the merger that would help them get the job done: the Jostle platform. It was time to welcome hundreds of new employees to their intranet, help them get oriented with the company, and connected to the teams.

Heading into a year of rapid change, their intranet team set two core goals: connecting all of their 20+ locations virtually and increasing and maintaining interaction among employees.

Creating a virtual office

Deutsche Glasfaser’s culture provides employees a high degree of flexibility in their daily work. With employees working from home or one of their offices to workers in the field, their intranet needed to serve as a virtual office. Several features enabled them to achieve this:

• Discussions help staff communicate with one another in real-time, whether they are working from home, the office, or on the go.
• Library allows employees to access critical company files and documents from anywhere, and Search ensures they can find these resources quickly based on just a few keywords.
• News ensures that everyone is informed about important updates and critical information about the wider company.
• Finally, the mobile apps for iOS and Android enable employees to access this information no matter where they are.

“Thanks to Jostle, no matter where we are, we are connected, we can chat with one another, access files, and be informed about important news at the same time.”

Michael Eger
Corporate Communications Officer

Not only are employees using their intranet to read up on news, see upcoming events, and access resources needed for their job, they’re also becoming more active and participating themselves. Staff contribute to News with updates from their departments, take part in surveys, Shout-Out great work happening at their organization, and even list items for sale or apartments for rent in Listings.

“Employees show a high willingness to interact. With the help of Jostle, we can encourage this and offer more opportunities for employees to have their voice heard.”

Michael Eger
Corporate Communications Officer

Creating connections

Integrating the two companies was about more than just news and files, the intranet team also wanted to ensure they were helping employees forge connections. They created several new initiatives to help employees get to know each other, have fun, and tap into their competitive side. These included:

• A News series to profile and celebrate major projects happening across the business. Stories were published two or three times a month and helped employees learn about various company projects, locations, departments, or on-site activities.
• A series of virtual internal networking events (promoted in Events, of course), called DG Connect. These monthly events are attended by about 200 employees and focus on getting to know new people and learning more about other departments in the organization through entertaining presentations and breakout rooms for casual conversation.
• Tapping into their employees’ competitive nature through Employee Duels. Each division of the company was assigned a band name and asked to complete a survey. The more people in the division who completed the survey, the more points the Band was awarded. The drive to win awakened team spirit and communication across departments (oh, and a little trash talking and teasing in Activity, but it was all in good fun).
• A Christmas advent calendar with daily News articles published throughout December. Each article introduced a different competition, survey, recipe, gift idea, quiz, or riddle. Sometimes the daily article was a presentation from a department or an activity. It was important to the team that the campaign included, not just fun riddles, but activities that reinforced the changes that occurred over the year. For example, one activity asked employees to share which of the new company values resonated most with them and why.

“Our intranet helped us develop a strong sense of community at a time when our company was growing rapidly and unable to meet face to face.”

Michael Eger
Corporate Communications Officer

These initiatives were some of the most read, liked, and commented on. They brought more interaction and participation among employees, and people from different areas of the company were connecting and getting to know each other.

“Our intranet is more than just a place for employees to consume information; it’s a place for them to actively participate. A lively place for employees to celebrate and exchange ideas and opinions.”

Michael Eger
Corporate Communications Officer

Results

Since launching their Jostle intranet in 2016, Deutsche Glasfaser has grown exponentially, and Jostle has proven to be the key communication tool to get everyone on board throughout the changes. Every development step and milestone was communicated and discussed on their intranet. Deutsche Glasfaser’s intranet has grown along with them, as every change has brought more documentation to file in Library, more topics for News, and an expansion of their organizational chart in Teams. Their growth, and the growth of their intranet, is far from over.

“The Jostle platform has simplified our internal communication and helped us optimize our company now and for the future.”

Michael Eger
Corporate Communications Officer